About Rationally Speaking

Rationally Speaking is a blog maintained by Prof. Massimo Pigliucci, a philosopher at the City University of New York. The blog reflects the Enlightenment figure Marquis de Condorcet's idea of what a public intellectual (yes, we know, that's such a bad word) ought to be: someone who devotes himself to "the tracking down of prejudices in the hiding places where priests, the schools, the government, and all long-established institutions had gathered and protected them." You're welcome. Please notice that the contents of this blog can be reprinted under the standard Creative Commons license.

Wednesday, January 08, 2014

What virtues, and why?

by Massimo Pigliucci

Here comes another post on ethics! This one is, I must admit, somewhat meta-ethical, despite my recent post about the limited value of meta-ethical discussions when it comes to debates in first-order ethics. As I pointed out in the discussion that followed that essay, it’s not that I don’t think that meta-ethics is interesting, it’s just that it shouldn’t be used as an excuse for refusing to get down and dirty about actual everyday moral questions.

At any rate, what I’d like to do here is to explore a bit more of my own preferred framework for ethics, neo-Aristotelian virtue ethics (the “neo” prefix should alert the reader that I’m not about to defend everything Aristotle said, but rather discuss an updated version of the idea, based of course on his original insights). Specifically, I want to focus on the concept of virtue and the work that it can do in moral philosophy.

Before we get into the details, however, let me remind you of the basic stuff. First off, for the ancient Greeks the fundamental ethical question was not “what is right or wrong?” but rather “what sort of life should I live?” This shifts the emphasis from a societal, universalist, conception of ethics to one that is more personal (although the social context is always very much in sight); it also changes the sort of answers that are acceptable, since we are moving away from ethical judgments about individual actions and toward ethical consideration of one’s character and entire life. This different approach is based on the idea that if one has a right character then one will (likely) do the right things, which seems plausible to me, if there is any content to what the ancients referred to as phronêsis, or practical wisdom.

Aristotle was a keen observer of human nature, so he realized that being able to live a eudaimonic (i.e., morally virtuous) life is not just a matter of personal effort, but also of circumstances: one has to be lucky enough to be generally healthy and of sound mind, grow up within a supportive family, and be nurtured and educated early on by society at large. Failing any or all of this it will be impossible, or at the least extremely difficult, to be virtuous. This, again, strikes me as about right, and much more reasonable than the kind of impersonal view of morality that is embedded in systems such as utilitarianism and, particularly, Kantian deontology.

That said, what did Aristotle (and his more recent followers) mean by virtue? Certainly not what, say, Christians typically mean by that word. Concepts like purity and faith just don’t enter into the virtue ethical framework. Rather, for Aristotle a virtue is a character trait that, if cultivated, leads to a eudaimonic life. Typically, virtues are defined as a balance between extremes. For instance, courage is somewhere between rashness and cowardice. It has to be noted immediately that “somewhere between” doesn’t mean exactly in the middle. This isn’t an exercise in arithmetic. Where is the virtuous middle, then? It is a matter of commonsense, and the more wise a person is the more s/he will be able to find the right way. If this sounds vague, get used to it. A major criticism — but also a major advantage — of virtue ethics is precisely that it is flexible, leaving room for maneuvering around the complexities of human nature and circumstances.

So, here is the complete table of Aristotelian virtues, each characterized by the domain of action or feeling to which it refers, and accompanied by the two extremes between which one finds the virtuous compromise (unlike the usual version, these are in alphabetical order, for ease of consultation):

Domain

Mean

Excess

Deficiency

Anger

Patience/Good temper

Irascibility

Lack of spirit

Conversation

Wittiness

Buffoonery

Boorishness

Fear and Confidence

Courage

Rashness

Cowardice

Getting and Spending (major)

Magnificence

Vulgarity/Tastelessness

Pettiness/Stinginess

Getting and Spending (minor)

Liberality

Prodigality

Illiberality/Meanness

Honour and Dishonour (major)

Magnanimity

Vanity

Pusillanimity

Honour and Dishonour (minor)

Proper ambition/pride

Ambition/empty vanity

Unambitiousness/undue humility

Indignation

Righteous indignation

Envy

Malicious enjoyment/Spitefulness

Pleasure and Pain

Temperance

Licentiousness/Self- indulgence

Insensibility

Shame

Modesty

Shyness

Shamelessness

Self-expression

Truthfulness

Boastfulness

Understatement/mock modesty

Social Conduct

Friendliness

Obsequiousness

Cantankerousness

Of course, one doesn’t have to buy into this particular list, and indeed several others have been proposed. There is a useful Wiki entry on the history of the concept of virtue that I think makes clear two apparently contrasting things: on the one hand, there is (predictably) cultural and historical variation about what counts as a virtue (as the above mentioned case of Christianity clearly shows); on the other hand, there is surprising, shall we say, meta-convergence on the very idea of a virtuous character, and even on several of the traits that count toward that goal.

For instance, Plato (Aristotle’s teacher) only listed five virtues: courage, justice, piety, wisdom, and temperance. With the exception of piety — if you don’t believe in god-given morality — the list is hard to object to. The Stoics, however, seem to espouse what today is referred to as the doctrine of the unity of virtues, i.e. the idea that all virtues are really subsumed into a single fundamental one, which for them was prudence, meant as general wisdom.

Skipping the Judeo-Christian-Muslim tradition, because of its emphasis on things like faith and purity, let’s move Eastward: according to the Hindu, virtues lead to a dharmic (i.e., ethical) life, the clear equivalent of a eudaimonic existence in Greek parlance. Hindus have different lists of virtues, the shorter one being: non-covetousness, inner purity, self-restraint, truthfulness, and non-violence. Again, I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t be too difficult to build a correspondence map with Aristotle’s desiderata.

In Buddhism, the Noble Eightfold Path can be thought of as a list of virtues, although the brahmavihara sound more like what Westerners think of virtues: altruistic joy (i.e., being glad about the accomplishments of another person), compassion, equanimity, and kindness toward all.

Going even further East, in Taoism the term De actually meant precisely virtue in the sense of integrity of personal character, and was later re-conceptualized as moral virtue. It is also good to bear in mind that Confucianism has a lot in common with Aristotelian virtue ethics, though it put more emphasis on family and socially-oriented rules of conduct than Aristotle did.

Finally, in Japan the Bushidō code was based on a list of virtues: benevolence, care for the aged, courage, filial piety, honesty, honor, loyalty, rectitude, respect, and wisdom.

Now, if you expect to see my own version of the list of virtues, I’m about to disappoint you. I think many of the above are actually interchangeable, and that it doesn’t matter very much which specific list one subscribes to, if any. The point of the whole exercise is the general idea that certain character traits identify some people as worthy of our respect, and that we wish to cultivate those traits in ourselves and in our children.

Lest you be left with the impression that this is all so much philosophical masturbation, let’s bring in some science. Psychologists Christopher Peterson and Martin Seligman (yes, yes, I’m a bit skeptical of “positive” psychology too) did research on virtues across human societies (see their Character Strengths and Virtues: A Handbook and Classification, published in 2004 by Oxford Press). They grouped their findings into classes of virtues (Wiki version here): regarding wisdom and knowledge (e.g., creativity, curiosity, open-mindedness), courage (e.g., bravery, persistence, integrity), humanity (e.g., kindness, social intelligence), justice (e.g., citizenship, fairness), temperance (e.g., forgiveness, humility), and transcendence (e.g., appreciation of beauty, hope, humor). The result highlights “a surprising [not to me, or Aristotle!] amount of similarity across cultures and strongly indicates a historical and cross-cultural convergence [in the concept of virtue].” [If you don’t want to shell out the bucks for the book, here is a paper on the same topic, co-authored by Dahlsgaard, Peterson, and Seligma. And here is a comparative study across nations and across American states.]So, at the very least it seems like the concept of virtue (and, to a lesser extent, its specific content) is widespread across human cultures, both temporally and spatially. It can be studied by the social sciences, and it can be unpacked and — arguably — improved upon by philosophical reflection. Will any of this help you the next time you face a moral dilemma? And, more to the point, will it lead you to a satisfying, eudaimonic life? The proof, as they say, is in the pudding. But I’m tempted to wear a bracelet with the initials WWAD, rather than the more popular WWJD.

83 comments:

So the issue of convergence (or non-convergence) arises again. I agree that there is a degree of convergence here – not surprising given that most of these systems are all about promoting social harmony. But how much convergence? I tend to see the differences, whereas others prefer to emphasize similarities.

The key question surely is about priorities, about how we rank the various qualities, about which ones we want to put an emphasis on in bringing up our children. Courage (or self-reliance for that matter) is very different from a capacity for sympathy, for example, and systems which rank sympathy high and the other low will be very different from systems which do the opposite. And systems based on filial piety are diametrically opposed to most radical or socialistic systems. Arguably every ideology can be reinterpreted in terms of the personal characteristics which are particularly valued within that system.

The scientific or historical study of ethical systems is intrinsically interesting, and most of us will exhibit or develop preferences for particular codes. But I don't like the idea of using my knowledge of what is (or what was) as a tool to persuade others about what should be.

If one wants to moralize, moralize. But don't dress it up as an objective (in some sense) intellectual discipline.

Mark, isn't your injunction 'don't pretend that morality is objective,' a moralization based on what you see to be the objective fact-value distinction? I think the remedy is to recognize that, as I agree with you, what _is_ accross cultures doesn't necessarily yield an ought, but what if we ask the question at the personal level: isn't practical reason rather concerned only with what is-to-be? In this sense, the is-to-be is the obvious ought, and virtues are just the habit for this ought.

My claim here is not about morality but about the possibility of encompassing normative ethics in – or seeing it as – an intellectual discipline.

You can study real moral systems (historically etc.). You can make useful conceptual points and distinctions (meta-ethics). But deciding what human qualities or ethical or social values are most desirable or what the right thing is to do in a given situation takes us well beyond any academic discipline.

Not to belabor the point, but I guess I'd want to know in more detail what you mean by the "intellectual" discipline that becomes an "academic" discipline at the end of your post. It seems you mean we should not pretend ethics is an enterprise of the speculative intellect, as are the natural sciences, which deal with the certain and the unchanging, conclusions deduced from premises. In this I again agree with you, but I notice also that Aristotle says the mean between the extremes is not found with the speculative intellect, but with the practical intellect. For example, "Do the equations predict the drag reduction in the new airplane wing?" is answered yes or no, with some margin of error. But the question, "Should a bystander run into a burning house to save people?" will never be answerable yes/no, even with 100% error margin; it's not amenable to speculative thought, because of its contingent object. So I agree that this kind of question isn't subject to the tool of science, and I agree its answer cannot be taught in the academy, but I think discovering the objects that make practical principles intelligible for societies is academic, for example by anthropologists and psychologists. Those disciplines won't tell us right and wrong, but they will give clues as to what goods are reducible vs. irreducible, and from there the philosophers can argue right and wrong.

>... I'd want to know in more detail what you mean by the "intellectual" discipline that becomes an "academic" discipline at the end of your post. It seems you mean we should not pretend ethics is an enterprise of the speculative intellect, as are the natural sciences, which deal with the certain and the unchanging, conclusions deduced from premises.<

I would not characterize science like this at all. This sounds more like a description of traditional metaphysics or logic.

But we agree, I think, that normative ethical questions can't be answered satisfactorily by speculative reason or by science.

Some sort of practical reason or judgment is required. Fair enough.

>[A particular moral judgment is] not amenable to speculative thought, because of its contingent object.<

Contingent object? Science can handle the contingent. I think rather that the problem is the complex social etc. nature of moral decision-making.

>So I agree that this kind of question isn't subject to the tool of science, and I agree its answer cannot be taught in the academy, but I think discovering the objects that make practical principles intelligible for societies is academic, for example by anthropologists and psychologists. Those disciplines won't tell us right and wrong, but they will give clues as to what goods are reducible vs. irreducible, and from there the philosophers can argue right and wrong.<

But more to the point: what are your views on who should be the moral authority? What if I were to propose an academic theory based on practical reasoning that purports to be universally binding; would you be interested in my recounting it? I'm a beginner, but would appreciate the exercise.

> But more to the point: what are your views on who should be the moral authority? <

My point is simply that I don't believe that anyone is or can be an authority on these matters in the way a scientist, say, or an historian can be an authority on (the facts relating to) his or her area of expertise.

> What if I were to propose an academic theory based on practical reasoning that purports to be universally binding; would you be interested in my recounting it? I'm a beginner, but would appreciate the exercise. <

I am extremely skeptical about such projects. Also I suspect from some other comments you have made that there may be a religious basis – or at least motivation – for your ideas, and I am not religious.

Massimo, you may be interested to know (or may have already heard) that in his book _The Nature of Buddhist Ethics_ scholar Damien Keown argues that Buddhist ethics is eudaimonic in a roughly Aristotelian sense.

Isn't virtue ethics individualistic to the point of possible selfishness. I'm going to run the risk of being accused of Godwin's Law here and say that, for Hitler, killing Jews was part of the good life.

Short of that, even, I can refer to Massimo's "neo" prefix. There are various things that floated Aristotle's eudaemonistic boat that we'd consider unethical, to put it mildly, today. Oh, like ... slavery, and slavery giving the luxury for a man of means to separate himself from the polloi. (Socrates, despite my handle, was also an elitist. That's what got him killed, in part, and you don't need to read Izzy Stone to know that.)

«Isn't virtue ethics individualistic to the point of possible selfishness», as far it includes the plasticity that Massimo assumes to be reasonable I guess one might conclude that that is the case.

That is what I fail to understand, as personally I can’t escape from concluding that moral is objective, in the sense that we can acknowledge that moral intention is universal (as Massimo shows in his post), in spite it is not simple and straightforward, but nothing in the universe shows to be simple and straightforward, and how should morality be that way.

Plus the fact that the notions of morality, as understood by Aristotle, aren't exactly the same as the ones we have today, such as in the case of slavery. The relevant fact is that they remained quite actual, in spite of the changes that occurred in human society, since those times.

Plus I fail to understand some popular concepts of morality that use the emphasis on subjectivity, in order to somehow imply that every action can be somehow moral and every behaviour is somehow virtuous. It is not the case we know very well that humans can fool themselves, and many times think that something is true something that is not correctly justified. The fact that we may try to be moral and virtuous doesn't entail that it is the case, and in fact very often we are not neither moral nor virtuous. In some sense these concepts seem to purpose to turn morality towards some sort of simple and plain as if simplicity, in itself could validate something, and wouldn’t be in itself meaningless.

My intuitions are completely the opposite of yours. I recognise that most humans feel a need to be moral, but the fact that they so often disagree on what is moral implies to me that there is no such thing as objective morality.

On a naturalistic framework, it's very hard to see how objective morality could be justified in principle.

That's not to say that immoral actions or behaviours can be considered to be moral or virtuous, but it does mean that there is no such thing as intrinsically immoral or moral actions or behaviours. Morality is in the eye of the beholder.

Probably you intuitions are much better than mine, as mine keep deceiving me all the way, consistently giving me the impression that whatever conception I hold, I see it true, and that whatever I do looks as good. But reality shows that I keep fooling myself, and more often than expected (for my personal pretentions) I find myself holding to be true what is false, and pretending to have done good, while it was in fact evil. But this might because I more prone to delude myself than a normal person.

But, besides our personal intuitions we can conclude from the observation of reality that apart from psychopaths (or persons that fooled themselves in a similar way) all humans pretend to justify and rationalize whatever they do in order to understand it as good, in spite of being quite capable of fooling themselves, and many times do evil, while pretending that it is justified or morally acceptable (as good). And to everyone their actions are only justifiable as long as they are understood as good (or as not evil). In this sense we can say that we are directed to act morally, in spite we might be able to fool ourselves.

Now if we can examine human societies we will find a large coincidence on what we understand to be good. Of course in examining morality we are subject to deceive ourselves and in fact we can find distinct notions of morality, from person to person, or culture to culture, or along time, however what is impressing is what stays in common, what remains unchanged with time or local culture, as if it was objective.

All this would be quite strange if morality (or the notion of what is good) would be subjective. It would require an amazing, probably magical or supernatural explanation for morality.

One other thing, is that no one seems to see morality as subjective (even if they claim that it is the case), everyone seems to hold to a very objective code (in spite of the possible inconsistencies), but it just not that people seem to hold to an objective code, but also they act as if it is in fact objective and respond strongly to any breach of morality, such as in any occasion that someone might seem to try to harm them, no one seems to accept that the other (the offendor) is entitled to hold any particular type of subjective morality, and in fact morality is defended and considered as if it was in fact objective.

So in spite of I my intuition (probably based on the argument that our cognition, consciousness, and reasoning are subjective), may suggest that morality might be subjective, reality clearly indicates that it is not the case.

« On a naturalistic framework, it's very hard to see how objective morality could be justified in principle.»

Clearly I can’t justify objective morality, in a way that might make sense to you, I could say that it might be justified by human nature (which is objective), but probably we would disagree on that, or by God, but probably we would disagree also, so I skip the justification (sorry).

>It would require an amazing, probably magical or supernatural explanation for morality.<

I don't think it would take a miracle for most of human societies to converge on a similar set of virtues. We are all the one species, and on naturalism we have evolved certain norms that encourage successful reproduction and survival. In my view, morality is explained by emotions which have evolved so as to encourage such behaviours.

But while there is broad convergence on similar values, there are nevertheless profound differences. I just don't see how that can be reconciled with a view of human nature as the evidence for objective morality.

Racism, homophobia, sexism etc can all be justified by appeal to the naive behaviours and values exhibited by human societies throughout history. I suspect you would agree with me that such positions ought not to be justified, so I am very wary of any attempt to equate morality with the norms prevalent in human societies.

>everyone seems to hold an objective moral code <

This strikes me as akin to the claim that everyone behaves as if they believe in an objective aesthetic code simply because they prefer some foods to others.

I do not behave as if objective morality is true, because that doesn't mean anything. No behaviour distinguishes a moral realist from a moral non-realist beyond professing positions on moral realism. I behave as though I view my own moral views are important and worth fighting for. This is hardly surprising: my moral views are important to me because they are mine. I can fight for these views, promoting equality, fairness and pacifism without at any time assuming that my morality is objective.

As far as I can understand moral is objective as lie outside the individual and is not dependent upon our perception or belief. This doesn’t entail that I must rely only on my immediate intuition in order to grant the morality of my actions, as in fact I might not perceive it correctly, but we are rational and we know very well that we may trick ourselves in recognizing what is rightly justified. But I as any other person seek to act morally, and in order to do something I have to recognize that it is good (or at least not evil).

The fact that moral is not simple and that in fact we discuss it since we are men and are capable to dispute what is true or false, and that we may disagree on morality doesn’t follow that it is not objective (I didn’t claim that is was obvious or straightforward). Plus the fact is that, in spite of we might disagree most of it is quite universal (although not entirely, as it is not uncontroversial). And as matter of fact (even if consider it subjective) we behave as if it objective. I would say that it looks quite objective (again not simple, straightforward or uncontroversial), then in order to consider it subjective, we have to require and extraordinary justification that lead to fact that it looks objective, and meaningfully related to what I may call the human nature.

On this I have to add also that the fact that I consider it objective it doesn’t follow also that it is not advantageous for humans or that we might not frame it under sociological, psychological, or neurological aspects, all these are other levels of explanations, which add very little to the insight what we already have by the study of human ethics and moral.

You seem to be tempted to rely on the nature of intuition (that is subjective) in order to claim that it is in fact subjective, and somehow we have the illusion that it is objective.

The fact that human societies and individuals might get this wrong and tolerate odd things like slavery, racism, homophobia, … is significant to what? To indicate that we might get things wrong, well we can, but we are also able to see that it is wrong and to correct our previous conceptions (we are not irrational).

It is interesting that you mention beauty, it seems trickier, but it isn’t. We also recognize it as objective, although the universality seems narrower and the disagreement might seem larger.

And in case of truth it is also similar, we dispute what is true or false, we disagree on that, but do you think that truth is subjective, for me it would be nonsense. I can’t consider it as subjective, even if humans often disagree (as may fail to acknowledge what is true and consider that something that is false to be true), and there is disagreement in human society about it, and eventually everyone pretends to hold the truth.

If I am understanding you correctly, you claim that it seems that morality is objective, and the fact that I can account for human behaviour with only subjective morality does not prove that it is not objective.

My answer to that is that it certainly does not seem to be objective to me, and since it's difficult to account for objective morality given naturalism, and especially since subjective morality is all we need to explain what we observe, it seems much more parsimonious to me to reject the idea of objective morality.

I agree with you that I have not shown conclusively that morality is not objective. But what reason do you have for thinking it is?

In fact if you consider that morality is subjective, it is simple indeed, it is the ultimate simplifications as it become entirely irrelevant (to the point where anything is acceptable).

The thing is why should one consider that is subjective, on the basis that it results from our subjective perception of reality (that clearly is the result of subjective processes, such as cognition, consciousness and thinking), but in spite of this subjective nature our perception of reality indicates that the result, in this case morality, is objective.

As I said this is no different than other values such as truth or beauty (here we might recognize doesn’t mean that it is not uncontroversial, or that there is a deep agreement, as it is not the case). It also no different from the fact that we recognize the colour red, to be something objective (or that there is objectivity in what we mean about that), it is also not the case that our personal and subjective experience have to be exactly the same. It is not also the case that everyone is capable of recognizing redness, as a person might have a cognitive disability (a blind, or colour blind, person). Much in the same way a person maybe present also a moral disability (such as a psychopath), or a partial disability (a fail to address morality), and in some sense we all able to rationally justify our own small (or large) disabilities in relation to morality.

Another issue, entirely different, is our own account for the existence of a moral objectivity, although I believe that it the result of human nature (and what is human nature, that may not be simple to explain). But if naturalism fails to account reality, it fails, there is nothing mysterious about that and it is not the case that naturalism is capable of explaining everything, we might believe that probably one day it might explain (or that it will never be capable of explaining it), it is no reason to deny reality.

I think that parsimony as a (metaphysical) criteria is quite overrated, if reality shows us that there is no simplicity, choosing simplicity is just a matter of common sense, as to avoid unnecessary complications (but this as to be justified, or we are just fooling ourselves for the sake of simplicity).

>it is the ultimate simplifications as it become entirely irrelevant (to the point where anything is acceptable).<

You are confusing moral anti-realism with normative moral relativism. I don't believe anything goes. Certain things feel right and wrong to me and I stand by those principles. I just don't claim to have objective truth on my side, because I reject objective truth with regards to moral questions.

>but in spite of this subjective nature our perception of reality indicates that the result, in this case morality, is objective.<

But why do you think it is objective?

>As I said this is no different than other values such as truth or beauty<

Truth is objective. Beauty is not.

>It also no different from the fact that we recognize the colour red, to be something objective<

I think this is possibly equivocating. There is the experience or qualia of redness, which is not objective, and there is a certain band of wavelengths of electromagnetic radiation, which is.

>But if naturalism fails to account reality, it fails, there is nothing mysterious about that and it is not the case that naturalism is capable of explaining everything,<

But so far there is nothing that naturalism fails to explain. Naturalism doesn't account for objective morality, but then there is no evidence for objective morality and so nothing to explain.

>I think that parsimony as a (metaphysical) criteria is quite overrated, <

I think you misunderstand parsimony. Parsimony is not just a preference for simple theories. Parsimony is making explanations as simple as possible to explain what is observed, but no simpler. If reality is not explained by a simple theory, parsimony does not recommend adopting it. My position is that there is no evidence for objective morality, so parsimony suggests rejecting the objective morality hypothesis.

Again, why do you believe in objective morality? You are expending all your efforts to show me how belief in objective morality might be rescued against my criticisms, but why do you believe in it in the first place?

« I don't believe anything goes. Certain things feel right and wrong to me and I stand by those principles. I just don't claim to have objective truth on my side, because I reject objective truth with regards to moral questions.»

I acknowledge that you rely on your moral intuitions (but this doesn’t entail that you believe that anything goes, and I was not suggesting that, although I think it is a risk, arising from subjectivism).

« But why do you think it is objective?»

As I explained to you that is what I can observe from my perception of reality, but since you claim that it is subjective, I clearly can’t pretend to be capable of showing that it is the case.

« Truth is objective. Beauty is not.»

Do you have any possible explanation that truth is distinct and might be objective while beauty or morality must be subjective (besides your intuition), after all it is quite common that people disagree about truth, as much as about morality or beauty (as you might realize by the arguing on anything that is posted here in Rationally Speaking).

«I think this is possibly equivocating. There is the experience or qualia of redness, which is not objective, and there is a certain band of wavelengths of electromagnetic radiation, which is»

What do you mean, is that redness is subjective, in a way that when I say red you imagine that it is any another colour. Or you are not sure about what I mean with red?

« But so far there is nothing that naturalism fails to explain. Naturalism doesn't account for objective morality, but then there is no evidence for objective morality and so nothing to explain. »

Well to be precise naturalism doesn’t account morality at all (even less if it is objective or subjective), just as it doesn’t account aesthetics (objective or otherwise), well it doesn’t account truth also.

I am sure I don’t misunderstand what is parsimony (it is not complicated). In this matter given the credit you give to your intuitions, parsimony is not able to contradict you.

« Again, why do you believe in objective morality? «You are expending all your efforts to show me how belief in objective morality might be rescued against my criticisms, but why do you believe in it in the first place? »

I tried to explain my reasons in my previous comments (apparently with little success) I can’t surmount your criticism and it makes no sense to insist on that.

Ok, sorry for going on about it. It wasn't clear to me that you had no argument for objective morality beyond your intuitions. Personally, I try to avoid basing beliefs on intuitions where possible. It should at least cause you to doubt your position.

>Do you have any possible explanation that truth is distinct and might be objective while beauty or morality must be subjective (besides your intuition),<

Sure, because truth is a mathematical concept. In mathematics, a statement is true if it is consistent. In ordinary speech, true statements are those which are consistent with some aspect of the state of the world. Different people may have different opinions on matters of fact, but if we assume the world has an existence independent of people, some people are simply wrong.

Now, some statements are more ambiguous. Do we have free will? I think the answer is both yes and no, depending on what you mean by free will. Same thing goes for whether mathematical objects exist. As such, these statements have no truth value until clarified. This ambiguity might be construed as subjectivity of truth, but I think that is a mistake.

Beauty, as the saying goes, is in the eye of the beholder. What is beautiful is clearly subjective. To a dog, a dog is sexy. To a dung beetle, dung is tasty. To a woodlouse, light is repellent. What is sexy, tasty, beautiful, enjoyable, desirable, etc, are all a function of who you are, and if that is true for members of different species I see no reason to doubt that it is also true for members of the same species, albeit to a lesser extent. These attributes are not simply not intrinsic to the objects in the world.

>What do you mean, is that redness is subjective<

I mean some aspects of "red" are subjective while some are not. If one person perceives an object as red but another perceives the same object as orange, there may be a sense in which neither are wrong, due to the circumstances under which the object is viewed and also due to where each person draws the line between red and orange. However, there is also the objective fact of the wavelength of the light, which is not subjective (unless you want to count doppler effects due to different frames of reference).

>Well to be precise naturalism doesn’t account morality at all<

On the contrary, I think it accounts for subjective morality very well. It's not hard to see how we might have evolved moral intuitions as an evolutionary aide. We can see altruism of a kind even in social insects. It's not hard to extrapolate from that to human morality.

Similarly for aesthetics. We find different things attractive because they are in some way reminiscent of things that are evolutionary advantageous, or as a side effect of the evolution of something else.

>I am sure I don’t misunderstand what is parsimony<

Good, but if you argue against parsimony on the grounds that simple explanations don't always adequately explain what we see, then that looks very much like misunderstanding parsimony to me.

«It wasn't clear to me that you had no argument for objective morality beyond your intuitions.»What do you mean by saying that I have no arguments for objective morality, did you even bother to read what I said in my comments? I seriously doubt it.I have to keep it simple, I claimed that I can’t fail to recognize that morality is objective, and humans do realize that good and evil are objective. As:+ we humans (except in case of pathological behavior or self-deception) act according to what is good and while acting in an evil way we are compelled to acknowledge it good (or at least as not evil), or this behavior doesn’t seem rationally justified.+ in responding to the behavior of others we also see morality (or the sense of what is good or evil) as objective, and we expect the others to behave like if morality was objective. It is highly irrational to address the morality of others as subjective, it would have no meaning, and it wouldn’t be rational.+ even if the perception of reality is distinct from person to person and conditioned somehow by cultural constrains, most of morality is essentially similar among human societies, and becomes more and more similar (as if there was a convergence of morality), as cultures develop and the world becomes more interconnected.

This is clearly seen in the way humans consider murder (as the act of killing someone else), today in humans societies it is largely understood as wrong and evil. But this is not universal, in the sense that there are psychopaths (who are unable to understanding it), or that different people realize that in some special occasions it is justified, as in autocratic regimes, people may find murder reasonable by a sort of justifications as it is against the interest of the people, or against the interest of the nation, or of working class, or of the wellbeing of others, or the greater good, or whatever. The case is that it as to resemble some sort of objective good. But this only means that people are capable of fooling themselves and acting against reason.

You might disagree with me, or pretend that my arguments don’t persuade you, but to claim that I didn’t present arguments is absurd

Sorry, I didn't mean to offend, and I did read your comments. I'm sorry if you took me to be pretending you didn't present arguments. That was not my intention. It did seem to me (and it still does) that you did not present arguments or evidence that could not just as easily be construed as evidence for a subjective moral intuition. You presented arguments for morality, not for *objective* morality.

I'll try to explain why, mostly as an attempt to convince you I'm debating honestly rather than to persuade you.

>I have to keep it simple, I claimed that I can’t fail to recognize that morality is objective, and humans do realize that good and evil are objective.<

This to me is not really an argument. Firstly, claiming to recognise that morality is objective is either an assertion or an appeal to intuition. Secondly, I dispute that humans realise that good and evil are objective. Rather, humans debate whether this is the case, as we are doing now. I am an example of a human that does not realise or recognise that good and evil are objective.

[paraphrasing your second point: humans feel the need to justify their actions]

I don't see this as an argument for objective morality. It's an argument that there exists an intuition that morality exists. I agree with that, I just think the intuition is wrong.

[paraphrasing third argument: we judge others according to an objective standard]

But I don't! I judge others according to my own subjective morality, and I think that's what everyone else does too! You're asserting that this is irrational or meaningless, but I don't see an argument for this.

Besides, even if it is irrational to judge others according to subjective morality, that may be an explanation for why we feel the need to invent a fictitious objective standard of morality in an attempt to rationalise our irrational behaviour. As with the previous point, I really don't see it as any kind of argument for objective morality, but as an argument for the existence of a moral intuition.

[paraphasing fourth argument: morality converges over time]

Ok, sorry, that is indeed an argument for objective morality.

I think it's not a particularly strong argument, as there is also a convergence and sharing of a great many other cultural factors, e.g. fashion. It looks to me like human beings slowly reaching consensus via trial and error on how to live with each other in a global society based on what works best, but that doesn't mean that there is some Platonic ideal that is being approximated. Many disagreements remain, and I'm not too hopeful that they will ever disappear.

My arguments in defense of the existence of objective morality (and not subjective) is based only on the perception of reality, which shows that we can't escape from considering moral as objective.In the sense that we objectively assume a moral view, and act according to what you consider as objective morality (even if it is wrong and entirely subjective), we expect others to act in agreement with our notion of objective morality (even if wrong and entirely subjective), and if they don't we find reasonable to demand them to acknowledge that, as if it was obejctive (we don't understand the subjectivity of other people moral intuitions if they differ from ours).And also the nearly universal (and convergent) moral behavior of human societies, which shows that we have a rational perpective of morality, and that we are able to improve our view about morality.

In this sense the understanding of morality by humans, as realized from their behavior (in spite of different ideas and moral sistems), show a deep agreement with objective of morality.

Of course there are a number of views that pretend to show that morality is either subjective or objective, and I don't dismiss those positions, what I said is that I would require a extraordinary argument in order to explain that the morality is subjective, while we treat it as objective, but even so I don't understand how we can escape from treating it as objective (even if we pretend that that is not the case).

I am not pretending that I have indeed exposed a very strong case for objective morality. Probably not, as you said. But that is the way I see it, maintainig rationality (and assuming that humans are rational).

I genuinely don't think we need to believe morality is fundamentally objective. If we need objective rules to live by, that function is provided by laws. More casually, we still have social customs and norms that govern how we live from day to day. No objective morality is required.

Your argument is that most of us behave as if we believe in objective morality. I'm not convinced of this.

Yes, it is probably true that most of us do in fact believe in objective morality. But how would our behaviour differ if we did not?

Again, I don't believe in objective morality, yet I think my behaviour is much the same as anybody else's. I feel guilt and pride and I judge others to be morally lacking or praiseworthy. I don't see this as forgetting or pretending that there is no objective morality, I see it as taking my own subjective moral preferences seriously.

So, just to clarify, which of these best describes your position?

1) There is a difference in behaviour between moral realists and moral anti-realists,2) Moral anti-realists are not behaving according to their beliefs.3) Moral anti-realism is untenable or irrational

Actually,.there are different types of moral anti-realist, so if you like you can assume we're talking about my position.

Finally, I'd like to outline why I think we have a desire to believe that morality is objective.

If morality is objective, then some causes are worth fighting for. Otherwise, everyone will just fight for what they believe, with no right side, which in effect means that might is right. This is rather depressing and goes against our sense of justice, that the weak should be protected against the strong.

But the fact of the matter is that "might is right" regardless of whether objective morality exists. It doesn't matter if, say, abortion is objectively wrong, as long as the majority believe it is right. Those who have the power will do what they think is right, regardless of whether it is or not.

Objective morality doesn't save us from this plight without a way to prove what is objectively right. Since there is no way to show what is objectively right, subjective morality is in some ways just a recognition of the facts. Even if there were some metaphysical objective morality out there, without any way to detect it it might as well not exist.

I think that morality is objective, at least in the way that I can understand morality to exist. As a set of norms, rules, or laws that have the purpose of regulating our social interactions, or our existence as social rational beings. And that can be rationalized in a way to conform to what is objectively human nature.I understand that this is not simple (and I don’t pretend that it is), and doesn’t provide us a predefined set of rules that we may use, as say the laws of physics, and in spite of what we call the human nature is something objective, we might disagree about what do we mean with that. As nobody provided us these set of rules we must find them, and believe that each and every one of us, in fact tries to do that (regardless the adequacy of the criteria we use).

« So, just to clarify, which of these best describes your position?

1) There is a difference in behaviour between moral realists and moral anti-realists,2) Moral anti-realists are not behaving according to their beliefs.3) Moral anti-realism is untenable or irrational»

In response I think it doesn’t necessarily exists a difference in the behaviour of moral realists and moral anti-realists. Moral differences relate to distinct behaviors (which are not solely determined by the philosophical systems). Moral anti-realists are unable to be consequent with their positions. Moral anti-realism is wrong (incoherent), not necessarily irrational, just wrong as it departs from a wrong presumption (that moral is subjective or not objective).

I don’t presume to prove that morality is objective, but I would say that many other people (much wiser than me) provided very good arguments (such as Plato and Aristotle). And the refutation of their arguments is not good enough (at least for me).

It seems your main argument is that there is an objective human nature. Presumably we can even make this a subject of scientific study by anthropologists, psychologists, sociologists, economists etc. We can therefore take objective morality to be the norms and rules arising out of this human nature.

My problem with this is that I don't think there is a single, monolithic, objective human nature. I think each person has their own nature, and the nature of even an individual can change over time. What we regard as generic human nature is a rough amalgam of traits common to the population of humans, but I really don't think that individuals are approximating some Platonic ideal.

If human nature is just a composite, an averaging out of the personalities and views of all individuals, then sampling different populations of humans at different times in history or from different cultures will lead to different views of human nature. This view of human nature might be used to argue that it is human nature to oppress women or to persecute homosexuals and other minorities. While this may be true, I fear the seemingly inevitable conclusion that it is objectively moral to do so.

>Moral anti-realists are unable to be consequent with their positions.<

I have tried to explain why I don't think this is the case. In what way do you think my behaviour is not consistent with my position? What's wrong with living by a personal moral code?

>Moral anti-realism is wrong (incoherent)<

I think there is a difference between being wrong and incoherent. Incoherent views are views built on some internal contradictions or rest on vague, fuzzy assumptions that cannot be clearly articulated.

If I believe that New York is the capital of the USA, my belief is wrong but not incoherent. If I believe that Washington DC and New York are both the capital city of the USA, then my belief is probably incoherent.

If you truly think that moral anti-realism is incoherent, I feel you ought to be able to point out a mistake in my reasoning, which so far I don't think you have. If you just want to say that it's wrong, that's fair enough.

As I told you before, I can’t provide you any simple explanation for morality, even if it is the case that it is objective, which is my conviction, I can’t give a simple and undisputable explanation of it or provide any insight towards a simple understanding of it.

«My problem with this is that I don't think there is a single, monolithic, objective human nature.»,

I don’t know if anyone is capable of providing it also (I clearly am not). But that doesn’t deny that it is possible to see it that way, as it is not the case, there are plenty of people that consider morality to be objective, and have dedicated extreme efforts to support their case.However to say that there is no “single, monolithic, objective human nature” is the same as to say that there is no “single, monolithic, objective carrot nature” or that there is no “single, monolithic, objective sheep nature”, but we know very well that it is not the case as we, in fact, pretend to know very well that we know what objectively is a “carrot nature” or a “sheep nature”, as in fact these are important activities that humans are committed to in growing carrots and raising sheep, and they are very well understood activities, insofar as we are capable of understanding what is objectively a carrot or a sheep (and we know very well that each carrot or each sheep is in itself unique and distinguishable from other carrots or sheep. I know that humans are different and more complex, but that just means that in case of humans the correct understanding of what is to be human is more complicated, nothing else. Again I never claimed this to be simple or easy.

« What's wrong with living by a personal moral code?»

I didn’t mean to imply that that was wrong by itself. If it is enough, or reasonable, to yourself, I wouldn’t advise you to change your perspective. For me it is wrong, as it departs from a wrong premise (that morality is subjective), and, in this sense, as it is wrong it will necessarily leads to incoherence. As I argued before that one thinks that morality is subjective, but in reality we have to apply it as if it was in fact objective.

It is about the same thing that we observe in the matter of “free will”, which, as we know, there are a considerable number of people that think that there is no free will, or that it is just an illusion. In spite of thinking that free will exists and is real, and I don’t pretend to argue about that, what we can observe is that even the people that deny the existence of free will, can’t fail form considering that it real (and not an illusion), and behave as if free will is real. As in fact we know that people are morally responsible for their actions, and we don’t take allow ourselves from alleviating other people (or even ourselves) from that responsibility (and if we behave immorally we feel shame and experience remorse).

«If I believe that New York is the capital of the USA, my belief is wrong but not incoherent. If I believe that Washington DC and New York are both the capital city of the USA, then my belief is probably incoherent.»

The problem of something being false is that it will be incoherent with reality. What you are saying is that we are able to fool yourself into accepting falsehood, as if it was true, but you would find the incoherence and would recognize the falsehood, while trying to give it a meaning as trying to address it with someone else (that knew that in fact New York was not the capital) holding that claim. I would say that holding false believes would not bring anything good for you, in spite of being able to provide some comfort for a while.

That's a good point about carrots and sheep. It certainly seems that there is a carrot nature and a sheep nature, and if so there certainly must be a human nature.

However I think that carrot and sheep nature is an illusion. Is a sheep/goat hybrid a sheep? How about an ancestor of a modern sheep from 100 years ago. 10,000 years ago. 1,000,000 years ago.

There is no point at which we can clearly say a non-sheep has given birth to a sheep. Sheep, like all biological species (including carrots and humans), is a fuzzy category. It is a vague, useful concept which we can apply in day to day life because we don't come across too many individuals which don't fit cleanly into or outside of the set "sheep".

There are things we can say all sheep have in common, sure. But to do that for humans would be to draw an impoverished description of humanity in such broad strokes that I imagine no useful morality could be derived from it.

>As I argued before that one thinks that morality is subjective, but in reality we have to apply it as if it was in fact objective.<

Sorry, I just don't understand this. You claim that living by a personal moral code is in effect living as if it was in fact objective. It seems to me that I could just as easily say that living by what you believe to be an objective moral code is in effect living by a personal moral code. I see no logical problem with living by a personal moral code and I don't see why you think that means effectively treating it as objective. One lives by a code - whether it is personal or objective has no logical bearing on the matter as far as I can see.

>what we can observe is that even the people that deny the existence of free will, can’t fail form considering that it real (and not an illusion), and behave as if free will is real.<

This is another example of the same disagreement. I don't believe in free will and I don't think I behave as if I do. Everything I do can be explained just as well in terms of not having free will. In particular, there are good arguments for moral responsibility even without assuming free will.

Finally, on the New York thing: We have a semantic disagreement which I'm trying to clarify. I claim that being wrong is not the same as being incoherent, you seem to disagree. Being wrong may be a case of believing something which though plausible is inconsistent with reality. ("Incoherent with reality" is, I feel, an incorrect usage of the term).

Being incoherent is another way of being wrong but it entails having beliefs which make no sense - i.e. they are internally inconsistent or vague to the point of nonsense. Something incoherent can be shown to be so from the armchair. If it's coherent, you can only show it to be wrong with empirical evidence. Of course, failing to find empirical evidence doesn't mean it's right.

So, I understand you think that my position is wrong. Do you also think it is incoherent?

>> If this sounds vague, get used to it. A major criticism — but also a major advantage — of virtue ethics is precisely that it is flexible, leaving room for maneuvering around the complexities of human nature and circumstances.

This, for me, has always been my chief difficulty with virtue ethics. It's not that I think vagueness in principle counts against a theory - it's just that I have very little idea of what the content of virtue ethics consists of. I have some idea, for example, of what a utilitarian or a Kantian would prescribe in certain situations, or how they think you ought to live your life, but the "flexibility" of the virtue ethicist makes it difficult for me to figure out what is or isn't recommended by his theory. (By the way: there's nothing impersonal about Kantian ethics - it's all about legislating your own rules to live by.)

But perhaps that's just a product of my ignorance - perhaps this is a more concrete question for virtue ethicists:

>> First off, for the ancient Greeks the fundamental ethical question was not “what is right or wrong?” but rather “what sort of life should I live?"

To the extent that these are different questions, surely we should have ethical theories to cover *both* these questions, right? Take, for example, a single momentous decision - suppose you're Truman deciding whether or not to drop an atomic bomb on Japan (if you think that was obviously the wrong thing to do, choose a real-life ethical dilemma that you think is much tougher to decide). It seems to me that you could have been raised in great conditions, and you could exude all the virtues of patience, courage, temperance, etc., but you'd still be faced with the tough question: *what should I do in this situation*? What kind of argument does the virtue ethicist give to say whether Truman should or shouldn't have drop the bomb? If the virtue ethicist isn't in the business of giving those kinds of pronouncements, then shouldn't we supplement virtue ethics with an ethical theory that *is* in that business? These are important questions, after all!

It seems we're driven straight back to the same old debates between utilitarians, Kantians, contractualists, and other ethical theorists; someone will say that we should prioritize the consequences of the actions and the resulting balance of pain/pleasure, someone else will say that we shouldn't murder innocent civilians regardless of the consequences, somebody will say something else., etc.

Once again it does not appear as if there are any whys or hows explained, indeed the post reads very much as if one can come up with whatever virtues one fancies (flexible!). Just about the only positive claim is that a virtue should be somewhere in the middle between extremes, but that is not justified in any way. Why should there not be at least some cases where an extreme is the right way to go?

See, I don't think that virtue ethics are a bad idea or something like that. It is just that a classification seems to make no sense that puts deontologists, consequentialists, contractualists and virtue ethicists as equal-rank categories next to each other. The problem is that the first three have some kind of way of arriving at a conclusion about what is good and what is bad (even if you do not necessarily agree that this or that method is sound) while the last does not have any.

I consequently doubt whether virtue ethics is another box at that rank. Perhaps it is more a shift in perspective that can be made by any deontologists, consequentialists and contractualists, and perhaps you are, say, a consequentialist virtue ethicist. Because your decision on what is a virtue still has to come from somewhere, and this post may indicate that it apparently does not come from virtue ethics.

I generally agree with what you have written her, but I think you're being a bit unfair here:

>Just about the only positive claim is that a virtue should be somewhere in the middle between extremes, but that is not justified in any way. Why should there not be at least some cases where an extreme is the right way to go?<

Massimo explicitly said that it didn't have to be the middle. It could be that in some cases the extreme is the virtuous path.

> That said, what did Aristotle (and his more recent followers) mean by virtue? Certainly not what, say, Christians typically mean by that word. Concepts like purity and faith just don’t enter into the virtue ethical framework. Rather, for Aristotle a virtue is a character trait that, if cultivated, leads to a eudaimonic life. <

Faith does enter into the picture. One must believe that there is a causal relationship between cultivating the virtues and reaping the happy life (or the good life). (If you didn't have faith in the practice, then you wouldn't commit to it.) The difference between the theistic theory of virtue ethics and the atheistic theory of virtue ethics is that the former understands the ideal or perfect good to be "God" while the latter does not.

> Where is the virtuous middle, then? It is a matter of commonsense, and the more wise a person is the more s/he will be able to find the right way. If this sounds vague, get used to it. <

It sounds like it's more dependent on the intuitive mind (the faculty of "faith") than the analytical mind (the faculty of "reason").

> So, here is the complete table of Aristotelian virtues, each characterized by the domain of action or feeling to which it refers <

Note that it refers to some kind of "feeling" awareness.

> on the other hand, there is surprising, shall we say, meta-convergence on the very idea of a virtuous character, and even on several of the traits that count toward that goal. <

Imagine that.

> So, at the very least it seems like the concept of virtue (and, to a lesser extent, its specific content) is widespread across human cultures, both temporally and spatially. It can be studied by the social sciences, and it can be unpacked and — arguably — improved upon by philosophical reflection. <

How exactly does this differ from Harris' objective in "The Moral Landscape?"

Are individual people the necessary agents of virtue ethics? Why not families, communities, city states? Consequentialism and deontology seem to evaluate morality of acts irrespective of the scale of the agent, which means they don't have to deal with the scale problem. How do virtue ethicists decide on the agent of morality? Do they just assume it's people (The Republic notwithstanding)? If not , how do they manage this?

A very interesting article, and not much to disagree with. I'm just not sure that virtue ethics is that useful in practice.

It seems to be more a descriptive exercise, accounting for what virtues are valued by various human societies and by humans in general. I'm with Mark English, C, Gadfly and Alex: as a framework for making decisions when faced with moral dilemmas, it seems next to useless.

Do you think it is incompatible with utilitarianism or do you think they might simply be answering different questions? Could one justify the virtues with utilitarian arguments? Should one?

>"life is not just a matter of personal effort, but also of circumstances: one has to be lucky enough to be generally healthy and of sound mind, grow up within a supportive family, and be nurtured and educated early on by society at large."<

What does it mean to have a sound mind, to have a supportive family, to be nurtured and educated by society; what would it mean to not have a sound mind, to not have a supportive family, to not be nurtured and educated (or to be under-nurtured and under-educated or improperly-educated by society at large)?

>"it also changes the sort of answers that are acceptable, since we are moving away from ethical judgments about individual actions and toward ethical consideration of one’s character and entire life."<

It's certainly important to consider the character and overall life of a person, though this gives the impression of a utilitarian sort of calculation for individual actions which I've been hesitant to fully adopt as my own flavor of virtue ethics. It gives the impression that if someone built up enough credit in character and overall life and they knew they had this positive surplus, they could then choose to spend that credit by victimizing someone in an incredibly vicious way and still have enough positive credit left over to be considered a moral person... Would it be ok if Martin Luther King raped and murder an entire town?

>"If this sounds vague, get used to it."<

Lol, uh... no?

>"Now, if you expect to see my own version of the list of virtues, I’m about to disappoint you. I think many of the above are actually interchangeable, and that it doesn’t matter very much which specific list one subscribes to, if any."<

As a fellow virtue ethicist (though, I have a few flavors from the deontological and utilitarian entree's as well) I can definitely appreciate what you're saying. I would like you to elaborate a little more on why it wouldn't matter which list of virtues one subscribed to.

I would also like to get your thoughts on the thought that the different Deontological rules thinkers have come up with were basically striving for those same virtues (as well as the Utilitarian calculation, though by addressing different virtues), but by also asserting an ontological status to things like rights and what would be morally right and wrong in the context of those rights.

>"But I’m tempted to wear a bracelet with the initials WWAD, rather than the more popular WWJD."<

- Lol, how about a bracelet with the initials WWAMED (What Would A Moral Expert Do?).

> I agree that there is a degree of convergence here – not surprising given that most of these systems are all about promoting social harmony. <

It’s not just about social harmony, it is also about living a fulfilling and moral life.

> how we rank the various qualities, about which ones we want to put an emphasis on in bringing up our children. <

Why? Do you see this as a zero-sum game? I don’t. And of course some virtue ethicists endorse the Stoic idea of the unity of virtues, that there is only one fundamental virtue, which is probably best called (practical) wisdom.

> systems based on filial piety are diametrically opposed to most radical or socialistic systems. <

Which really haven’t produced particularly commendable results historically, arguably precisely because they put too much emphasis on the social and too little on the individual and family. (Conversely for radically individualistic systems, a la - gulp - Ayn Rand.)

Gadly,

> I'm going to run the risk of being accused of Godwin's Law here and say that, for Hitler, killing Jews was part of the good life. <

Well, I’d accuse you of not knowing (or appreciating) much about Aristotle or virtue ethics, which surprises me in a thoughtful fellow like you.

Actually, a slave for Aristotle is someone who cannot achieve eudaimonia for obvious reasons. But virtue ethics doesn’t justify slavery, and indeed it clearly condemns it. You can fault Aristotle for being partially incoherent, but that puts him in almost universal company among human beings.

C,

> It's not that I think vagueness in principle counts against a theory - it's just that I have very little idea of what the content of virtue ethics consists of. <

Except that virtue ethics isn’t really a *theory* per se (unlike utilitarianism, or deontology), it is a description and elaboration of a practice. We are all virtue ethicists as a matter of fact, even those of us who think of themselves as utilitarians or deontologists.

> there's nothing impersonal about Kantian ethics - it's all about legislating your own rules to live by <

I meant that Kantian ethics, like any deontological system, takes a universal, not personal perspective. Of course it’s about rules by which *everyone* has to live.

> It seems to me that you could have been raised in great conditions, and you could exude all the virtues of patience, courage, temperance, etc., but you'd still be faced with the tough question: *what should I do in this situation*? <

Right, but the idea is that if you were raised virtuously you’d have a good sense of what the best thing to do is. That’s what it means to be virtuous. Indeed, using your own example, I doubt Truman went around consulting his utilitarian or deontological adviser: he made the best decision he could, assuming he was a good person with good intentions.

> someone will say that we should prioritize the consequences of the actions and the resulting balance of pain/pleasure, someone else will say that we shouldn't murder innocent civilians regardless of the consequences, somebody will say something else <

Correct. The point is that *all* those considerations ought to be weighed, and that there is no single theory or framework that fits all situations all the time. It’s just the reality of actual moral decision making.

"Who defines what is 'eudaimonistic'?" (And then, what is "eudaimonism"?) If it's the individual, or an individual's social group, then Hitler can send Jews to Auschwitz while pleasantly sipping tea on the veranda at Berchtesgarden and pat himself on the back.

But, if it's an objective standard ... then aren't we in to system building?

And, if not, if we have to "get over" flexibility, then don't touters of virtue ethics have to get over people like me bringing up Hitler?

I'll be honest; the libertarian issues with virtue ethics are almost as big, in my mind, as utilitarianism foundering because we simply can't achieve the view from nowhere it demands.

I agree in rejecting deontology and utilitarianism, in part for that reason with utilitarianism, and almost totally so on deontology.

Per my trotting out of Hitler, and of Aristotle's reality, unless one makes an explicit appeal to evolutionary psychology done right, and follows that with an appeal to majoritarianism, one's left with an awfully libertarian set of ethics.

===

On Aristotle, that's more my shortcut, on not specifying the issue of incoherence, and it's a "tell" against his version of virtue ethics, not the whole. To take off on Emerson, I guess it's an issue of whether this is a foolish inconsistency or not, or a fatal one or not. It may not be for virtue ethics as a whole, but I think it is for his version of them.

That said, maybe Aristotle was actually a confused utilitarian, and meant that virtue ethics being practiced by a well-supported top line of citizenry would eventually maximize the flourishing of the masses? (Laughing at what Massimo will think at the idea of claiming Aristotle was a closet utilitarian.(

Oh, and per the appreciation? I do, ethical observations about him being an elitist aside, appreciate him on logic, and, given the constraints of his time, I appreciate him to some degree on what passed for science back then.

But on ethics? He floats my boat about as much as John Rawls.

He'll float my boat more if we do put virtue ethics through the filter of ev psych done right an an appeal to majoritarianism at times.

> personally I can’t escape from concluding that moral is objective, in the sense that we can acknowledge that moral intention is universal <

Honestly, I don’t even know what that means. Universal in what sense? Outside of human thinking? How?

> Plus the fact that the notions of morality, as understood by Aristotle, aren't exactly the same as the ones we have today, such as in the case of slavery. <

I really wish people dropped the slavery issue, it’s a distraction. Part of the virtue ethical view is that morality itself evolves because societies change. Try to fit that sort of evolution into the more rigid utilitarian or deontological systems.

> I fail to understand some popular concepts of morality that use the emphasis on subjectivity, in order to somehow imply that every action can be somehow moral and every behaviour is somehow virtuous <

I hope you are not imputing that view to me.

> very often we are not neither moral nor virtuous <

Which for Aristotle means we are not living a eudaimonic life. Too bad for us, according to him.

Alex,

> the post reads very much as if one can come up with whatever virtues one fancies <

I seriously don’t understand why you think so. Indeed, I would think that your moral naturalism would fit quite nicely with virtue ethics. It essentially says that morality is a human prerogative, constrained by human nature, but culturally evolving. Hume thought pretty much the same, according to a nice article published by Michael Gill back in 2000 (Hume’s Progressive View of Human Nature, in Hume Studies Volume XXVI, Number 1, pp. 87-108).

> Why should there not be at least some cases where an extreme is the right way to go? <

Aristotle’s was a keen observer of human behavior, and he simply noticed that we make our best decisions when we take a middle road between extremes. There is no absolute preclusion for some things to be good at their maximum expression, it just *happens* that human character traits can be thought of in the Aristotelian fashion.

> a classification seems to make no sense that puts deontologists, consequentialists, contractualists and virtue ethicists as equal-rank categories next to each other <

As I wrote at the beginning of the post, in an important sense they aren’t, since the latter approaches ethics from a radically different perspective.

> your decision on what is a virtue still has to come from somewhere, and this post may indicate that it apparently does not come from virtue ethics. <

Where does your decision to be a consequentialist (if that’s what you are) come from? Consequentialism?

Alastair,

> One must believe that there is a causal relationship between cultivating the virtues and reaping the happy life <

Nope. Again, Aristotle based a lot of his ideas on human psychology, or if you prefer on his analysis of human nature. Which is actually confirmed and refined by modern psychological research. No faith needed, as always.

> It sounds like it's more dependent on the intuitive mind (the faculty of “faith") <

As usual, you are confused. Intuition is not at all the same thing as faith.

> Note that it refers to some kind of "feeling" awareness. <

So? we are talking about human beings, not robots. Why should feelings not enter into it?

> How exactly does this differ from Harris' objective in "The Moral Landscape?” <

If after having read several of my posts on virtue ethics and on Harris you still don’t get it I’m afraid it is beyond my ability to explain.

« Try to fit that sort of evolution into the more rigid utilitarian or deontological systems.»Well I am not sure I can, but I think that we are capable of have a better understanding of morality (such as in the slavery issue ).

« I hope you are not imputing that view to me »Not the case.

«Which for Aristotle means we are not living a eudaimonic life. Too bad for us, according to him.»

I agree.

(BTW: Although I don't fully agree with you, I appreciated your posts on ethics)

> Are individual people the necessary agents of virtue ethics? Why not families, communities, city states? <

I’m not sure what you mean by “agents.” The only agents in human societies are individuals. But virtue ethics situates the individual very much within the fabric of both family and society.

> Consequentialism and deontology seem to evaluate morality of acts irrespective of the scale of the agent <

You mean that they take a universal point of view. Correct, I did address this in the post.

DM,

> I'm just not sure that virtue ethics is that useful in practice. <

As I said above, virtue ethics is actually what we do, all the times. It hardly gets any practical than that. When I try to teach wisdom — if you excuse the lofty word — to my daughter, day in and day out, instance after instance, I’m doing precisely what Aristotle recommended: guiding her toward becoming a virtuous person, one that makes the best decisions possible for both herself and others. I never sat her down to talk about utilitarianism or deontology.

> It seems to be more a descriptive exercise, accounting for what virtues are valued by various human societies and by humans in general <

A common mistake (Alastair certainly made it!), but that’s because virtue ethics is an approach that very much blends descriptive and prescriptive aspects, as good ethics (and good philosophy generally) should do. You can’t just put together a theoretical moral system with no regard to what human beings are actually like, or you’ll end up a Kantian (and even he famously said that an ought implies a can!).

> Do you think it is incompatible with utilitarianism or do you think they might simply be answering different questions? <

Partly, and yes. I made clear that the two are indeed asking different questions. But that’s only because in virtue ethics the right thing to do is what the virtuous person arrives at, so the focus shifts from the specific action to the training of one’s character. It is partly incompatible with utilitarianism (or deontology) insofar as the latter pretends to have a one-answer-fits-all approach to moral reasoning, a single criterion to maximize (or minimize).

Jacob,

> What does it mean to have a sound mind, to have a supportive family, to be nurtured and educated by society <

Well, I could ask in turn: on what planet do you live? Or, if you have children, what sort of support are you giving them? At the very least it means health care, emotional support, material wellbeing and good education.

> It gives the impression that if someone built up enough credit in character and overall life and they knew they had this positive surplus, they could then choose to spend that credit by victimizing someone in an incredibly vicious way <

Nope. The Greeks were very clear on this: we only know for sure whether someone lived a eudaimonic life after he’s dead, precisely because he could blow it all in one final vicious act. The idea is not that there is a cosmic bank were you can trade pluses and minuses as long as your balance doesn’t go into red territory.

> I would like you to elaborate a little more on why it wouldn't matter which list of virtues one subscribed to. <

I don’t think I would go as far as say that it wouldn’t matter. I think there is a remarkable degree of cross-cultural convergence on what character traits people find virtuous (or positive), so that I don’t need to be married to a specific list. Or you can go Stoic and say that all individual virtues are aspects of a fundamental one, and that that’s what you are concerned with. (For the record, I have doubts about the unity of virtues doctrine, and I’m not a Stoic.)

> by also asserting an ontological status to things like rights and what would be morally right and wrong in the context of those rights. <

I just don’t see the need for ontological assertions about rights. On this I’m with Bentham: natural rights are nonsense on stilts.

>As I said above, virtue ethics is actually what we do, all the times. It hardly gets any practical than that.<

Agreed. It is, in fact, how humans intuitively reason about morality and ethics.

My point was more about its value as a field of study. As a field of philosophical study, it seems only to have value to me in cataloging and describing human virtues. The prescriptive aspect of it seems to be irrelevant because it doesn't seem to offer any advice on how to behave or resolve moral dilemmas beyond the informal folk moral education we already get from our parents and society.

>"I think there is a remarkable degree of cross-cultural convergence on what character traits people find virtuous (or positive), so that I don’t need to be married to a specific list."<

- That seems very antithetical to the naming of the post, "What virtues and why?"... Why be afraid of the commitment? There are certainly some virtues that are worth defending, regardless if some culture somewhere at some time didn't see it as something worth valuing...

>"I just don’t see the need for ontological assertions about rights. On this I’m with Bentham: natural rights are nonsense on stilts."<

It seems that Bentham and most of the other critiques on natural rights (that I've been able to find so far) were from the perspective that a natural right had to be justified with a religious foundation instead of clearly understandable consequences of having separate consciousnesses from each other...

Why are "individuals the only agents in human societies"? Why not families? Why not mother-child pairings? Why not married couples? It sure doesn't feel like my wife and I make moral decisions in isolation, and our character is definitely developed collectively. So why is my individual virtue all that matters? Why not our virtue as a family?

Here's an illustrative (I think) example.

Children get hit by cars. Street incident reports often blame the child in these events--the child darted out, misjudged speed, whatever. Sometimes they blame the driver--driving too fast, didn't see the kid, whatever. But we could just as easily blame society at large--for prioritizing motorized transport over safe child commuting. We participate (actively or tacitly) in a culture that says convenience is worth the cost of unsafe environments for young children (who lack the cognitive capacity to navigate our transportation system safely). To me, I view this as a failing of collective, not individual, virtue, particularly because we all participate in this system to some degree.

I think Massimo's description still doesn't fully address the libertarian concerns, and I still see virtue ethics as primarily descriptive. Per what I said before, I think one has to trot in something outside, lest the prescriptive side be not for "virtue ethics," but "MY virtue ethics."

Massimo, as I've argued before for Hume supporting "something like free will," but without being a modern compatibilist (I reject that description of him), and with supporting "something like multiple drafts," or "something like subselves," I think he's somewhere in the vicinity of where I would describe myself on this issue, too.

I like virtue ethics because, unlike the other ethical frameworks, it is honest about its foundations (virtues and vices) not being objective. It gets a lot of criticism for that from advocates of utilitarianism.

But none of the normative philosophical frameworks can ultimately make the decisions for you. If you think they can, then think about how you judge utility in utilitarianism (or more broadly, consequences in consequentialism), or how you judge which rules are good in deontology.

Ultimately, you judge these systems by your pre-existing values, which arise from a combination of your evolved instincts for cooperation (which vary by person), and from social learning (which vary by culture).

We have no choice but to do the hard work of finding rules of conduct that most of us can live with. Moral philosophy can clarify our thinking, but it can't make the decisions for us.

I know Massimo, that you have suggested that virtue ethics and utilitarianism are at least partly incompatible. Does not however the key to ethics reside where the two concepts converge. A virtue ethicist believe that living a eudaimonic life will lead to good consequences both for the individual and for the society, so in that regard they should converge. It just seems the focus is more on the individual intent then on the consequence.

So where might a virtue ethical approach get into trouble. It could if the intents character are virtuous but if the understanding of the dynamics in a given circumstance are weak the consequences could be sub-optimal or even negative.

This leads me to the way we also use virtuosity as a metaphor for mastery. For example, Dizzy Gillespie was a virtuoso. He was a virtuoso in his field because he could quickly and instinctively move his notes in any way a presenting situation might dictate. This is very similar to the Taoist 'wu wei' concept (one of the key Taoism virtues). Wu wei means non-action, but really it acting without violation the natural flow of things so mastery in a given medium brings out this virtue.

So might an important part of the practical wisdom in virtue ethics be a self-awareness of our level mastery in different environments. This way we might limit the damage we could cause (despite the best intentions) when our systemic understanding is limited. This level of awareness regarding our level of understanding might also go a long way towards informing where between the various extremes a virtue might best fit a circumstance to lead to good consequences.

I can't help but feel that much of this discussion seems very lacking in--hate to use the phrase--practical utility. Your fall back position--that Aristotle understood human nature--seems arbitrary. I also think you are being, let's just say, dismissive of Alistair's comments because he seems to be taking a theistic position, though it would have served his purposes better if he had simply stated his position instead of attacking yours. But I am particularly concerned with the following exchange and its implications (re Jacob):

> by also asserting an ontological status to things like rights and what would be morally right and wrong in the context of those rights. <

I just don’t see the need for ontological assertions about rights. On this I’m with Bentham: natural rights are nonsense on stilts.

In apparently siding with Bentham on this, aren't you forced into Hamlet's relativistic position: "There is no right or wrong. But thinking makes it so."? So, how would you argue against Ayn Rand (whose positions seem at times almost a matter of temperament or a matter of intellectually justifying her moods) other than to snark, "radically individualistic systems, a la - gulp - Ayn Rand."

Don't take this the wrong way, but since you both seem to admire Aristotle's ethical position, how do you reach what seem to be radically different positions?

This is important to me because politicians like Paul Ryan apparently assign her drivel to his staff while preparing legislation that is supposedly justified as the morally superior position.

I was quite impressed with Massimo's first round of replies here – and a bit surprised that I found myself agreeing with so much of it!

I did not mean to suggest that one virtue excludes another, but in practice we can't help emphasizing the importance of some qualities over others.

And I was not entirely happy with the way I phrased the final paragraph of my earlier comment. It was really a general reaction against the idea of normative ethics as an intellectual discipline like any other (the expert issue!), not so much – and not specifically – against virtue ethics.

The historical (descriptive) content of the virtue approach is a plus, as is its compatibility with sciences like psychology.

I just don't see the utility of general ethical systems. It's mostly fluff to me. They're so vague that when it comes to the nitty-gritty they're largely otiose. One can say they're taking a consequentialist or deontological approach in a given situation but many times the systems seem to blur together. For instance, when we're looking at a case such as imprisonment of political dissidents, should we say that the victim's (deontological) right to free speech has been violated or that imprisoning citizens for criticizing their government (consequentialistically) harms society by such and such? The answer seems like a rhetorical preference. Perhaps you employ both arguments. If we're not worried by the lack of foundations for the different ethical systems, why constrain ourselves to adhere to a single system? Use whatever one floats your boat case by case. Or don't even bother contemplating what ethical system you're using to argue on a given issue because acknowledgment of your "framework" is extraneous to the debate.

> My point was more about its value as a field of study. As a field of philosophical study, it seems only to have value to me in cataloging and describing human virtues. <

That would be the psychology part of it. You might want to read something from the primary literature on virtue ethics to see that there is quite a bit of philosophy to be done there. The SEP entry is, as usual, a great starting point.

> The prescriptive aspect of it seems to be irrelevant because it doesn't seem to offer any advice on how to behave or resolve moral dilemmas <

You keep being stuck in the frame of mind of deontology/consequentialism, according to which the crucial ethical question is “what is the right thing to do?” But if you switch perspective, the question “what kind of life ought I to live?” is equally complex and worthy of analysis. And you get the bonus of arriving at answers to the first question as a byproduct!

Vasco,

> «Universal in what sense?» Among human societies. <

Well, accordingly to Aristotle all non-pathological human beings strive for a eudaimonic life, that’s universal. But that really doesn’t seem at all what you implied in your previous comment, which was about objective morality.

Seth,

> you have suggested that virtue ethics and utilitarianism are at least partly incompatible. Does not however the key to ethics reside where the two concepts converge <

It depends on what exactly we are talking about. A common misconceptions seems to be that virtue ethics doesn’t have space for consideration of consequences of moral acts, but that’s definitely not the case. The difference is that the *focus* of virtue ethics is on character, rather than actions; also, consequentialist systems are typically based on one optimizing criterion or two (pleasure / pain), which is far too narrow a view of morality for a virtue ethicist.

Alastair,

> According to Merriam-Webster, it would appear that I am spot on. <

One more time: leave your obsession with dictionaries and go to the primary sources, if you want to have a serious discussion. Intuition, in cognitive science, is the ability of the brain to make fast decisions based on subconscious processing of information. But there *is* information on the basis of which such processing is done! So there is “evidence,” it’s just not directly accessible to the conscious mind. Faith, on the other hand, has nothing whatsoever to do with evidence, under any circumstances.

> One more time: leave your obsession with dictionaries and go to the primary sources, if you want to have a serious discussion. Intuition, in cognitive science, is the ability of the brain to make fast decisions based on subconscious processing of information. But there *is* information on the basis of which such processing is done! So there is “evidence,” it’s just not directly accessible to the conscious mind. Faith, on the other hand, has nothing whatsoever to do with evidence, under any circumstances <

Translation: "I (Massimo) know that you (Alastair) have clearly demonstrated that there is a direct connection between our intuition and the firm beliefs we hold for which there is no proof (a.k.a. faith). However, I do not have the intellectual humility to acknowledge that I am wrong; therefore, I will engage in a pathetic spin-doctoring ploy. I will attempt to publicly discredit you by discrediting your source - namely, Merriam-Webster. Hopefully, this will allow me to "save face." I have employed this same tactic in the past (albeit, unsuccessfully) when I attempted to discredit you by discrediting the other sources (e.g. Wikipedia) you have cited. Unfortunately, I myself have cited Wikipedia several times on this very blog post. Hopefully, no one will notice the contradictory and hypocritical position I have taken."

> Because I’ve answered it countless times and I’m tired to do your homework for you. If only I could persuade you to read more widely (and more carefully) than Wikipedia and dictionaries. <

You have argued in a previous post on this thread that we have scientific evidence to establish that the practice of virtue ethics leads to happiness ("eudaimonia"). (Faith ("firm belief in something for which there is no proof") has nothing to do with our moral evaluations and convictions. Right?) Moreover, you have made the argument on this very post, implying that our intuition furnishes us with objective evidence. (Faith ("firm belief in something for which there is no proof") has nothing to do with our moral intuitions. Right?) This sounds very reminiscent of Harris' argument. So, instead of evading the issue by flinging personal attacks at yours truly, why don't you "man up" and answer the question. How does your view on this subject matter differ from Harris'?

>You keep being stuck in the frame of mind of deontology/consequentialism, according to which the crucial ethical question is “what is the right thing to do?”<

Correct. To me, that is the most interesting question in the philosophy of morality, and utilitarianism seems to me to be the most useful way to approach that question, though I agree it has limitations. It serves more as a framework to how the question should be approached rather than a scientific method that will lead you to a definitive answer.

>But if you switch perspective, the question “what kind of life ought I to live?” is equally complex and worthy of analysis.<

But could that not also be answered from a utilitarian perspective? What life will bring most happiness to me and others? I agree this is vague, but so are the Aristotelian virtues, at least to me.

>And you get the bonus of arriving at answers to the first question as a byproduct!<

I'm not sure you do really. I can't see how virtue ethics helps to frame moral dilemmas so as to recommend a course of action. I can see how utilitarianism could answer the question of the morality of abortion, but at the moment, not knowing that much about it, virtue ethics seems to me to be hopelessly inadequate to the task.

It actually seems to me that asking the first question (what ought I do) might lead to the virtues as a byproduct!

I'm very open to virtue ethics as a descriptive field, and also as a rough heuristic to how one ought to conduct oneself. It's just not up to the task of serious analysis of difficult problems.

Arbitrary how? Some principles of human behavior put forth by Aristotle (and by the Stoics) are still very relevant today. For instance, cognitive behavioral therapy traces back to the ideas we are discussing. Obviously, modern research in social science has refined the approach greatly, but I don’t see what’s arbitrary about it.

> I also think you are being, let's just say, dismissive of Alistair's comments because he seems to be taking a theistic position <

That is correct. I can no longer at this point in my life take seriously anyone whose “argument” starts with “there is a Big Guy in the sky from which all meaning and morality emanates.” Sorry.

> In apparently siding with Bentham on this, aren't you forced into Hamlet's relativistic position: "There is no right or wrong. But thinking makes it so.”? <

Not at all. It is another common misconception — shared for instance by the likes of Sam Harris — that the only two alternatives are moral realism (of whatever sort) and relativism. Not so, as we have explored many times on this blog. The concept of rights is obviously a human construction, but not an arbitrary one, as it is based on an increasingly refined reflection of what sort of life we want and what conditions best allow people to seek eudaimonia while at the same time respecting other people’s ability to do so as well.

> how would you argue against Ayn Rand (whose positions seem at times almost a matter of temperament or a matter of intellectually justifying her moods) other than to snark, "radically individualistic systems, a la - gulp - Ayn Rand.” <

Rand hardly deserves better treatment than the theistic one, but in a nutshell: the problem with both extreme individualism and extreme socialism is that they don’t take seriously human nature (unlike Aristotle). Humans are animals characterized by a mixture of individualistic and social tendencies, so that pushing one of the two angles too far undermines our chances at a eudaimonic life.

> since you both seem to admire Aristotle's ethical position, how do you reach what seem to be radically different positions? <

Rand had no clue about real philosophy, she either didn’t read the pertinent literature or she didn’t understand it.

> I was quite impressed with Massimo's first round of replies here – and a bit surprised that I found myself agreeing with so much of it! <

;-)

Jacob,

> That seems very antithetical to the naming of the post, "What virtues and why?"... Why be afraid of the commitment? There are certainly some virtues that are worth defending, regardless if some culture somewhere at some time didn't see it as something worth valuing <

I’m not sure why you seem the title as being at odds with the content, but anyway, yes, I did not mean to imply that any list of virtues will do. I explicitly excluded in the post the Christian ones of purity and faith, which in my mind do no eudaimonic work, and I would certainly exclude “virtues” like the Nazi idea of the purity of race. But at the same time it is interesting to note that there is more cross-cultural convergence about what constitutes good human character (and conduct) than one might think if the Aristotelian virtues were just a fluke of ancient Greek culture.

Jake,

> I just don't see the utility of general ethical systems. It's mostly fluff to me. <

Well, to each his own cup of tea. But it seems to me that the point of moral philosophy is to clarify to ourselves what we think (and do!) in the realm of ethics, and perhaps to find better ways of thinking (and doing). Hardly unimportant fluff.

> when we're looking at a case such as imprisonment of political dissidents, should we say that the victim's (deontological) right to free speech has been violated or that imprisoning citizens for criticizing their government (consequentialistically) harms society by such and such? The answer seems like a rhetorical preference. <

Maybe if you are listening to a television pundit. But there is serious and nuanced philosophical discourse that takes place in those cases. And it has legal consequences, as a lot of judges, for instance, have philosophical training and take seriously the idea of moral philosophy.

> If we're not worried by the lack of foundations for the different ethical systems, why constrain ourselves to adhere to a single system? <

I don’t. That’s why I reject deontology and utilitarianism — which are indeed “systems” — and embrace virtue ethics, which is an evolving set of practices.

I agree in rejecting deontology and utilitarianism, in part for that reason with utilitarianism, and almost totally so on deontology.

But, per my trotting out of Hitler, and of Aristotle's reality, unless one makes an explicit appeal to evolutionary psychology done right, and follows that with an appeal to majoritarianism, one's left with an awfully libertarian set of ethics.

>"I’m not sure why you seem the title as being at odds with the content"<

You completely avoided my question about not committing to at least one virtue worth defending, regardless if some culture somewhere at some time didn't see it as something worth valuing... if you had addressed that question you would be addressing why the title of the post is at odds with the content of the post.

Here I'm commenting on someone else's comment that got a response by Massimo:

>> > when we're looking at a case such as imprisonment of political dissidents, should we say that the victim's (deontological) right to free speech has been violated or that imprisoning citizens for criticizing their government (consequentialistically) harms society by such and such? The answer seems like a rhetorical preference. <

Maybe if you are listening to a television pundit. But there is serious and nuanced philosophical discourse that takes place in those cases. And it has legal consequences, as a lot of judges, for instance, have philosophical training and take seriously the idea of moral philosophy.<<

LMAO, your answer does seem like a rhetorical preference, especially when you poisoned the well with the whole "listening to a television pundit". You aren't giving anything substantial here Massimo, you're just saying its complicated and the people involved know better.

>> > If we're not worried by the lack of foundations for the different ethical systems, why constrain ourselves to adhere to a single system? <

I don’t. That’s why I reject deontology and utilitarianism — which are indeed “systems” — and embrace virtue ethics, which is an evolving set of practices.<<

Lol, just because you're a virtue ethicist doesn't mean you get to not have some foundation for your arguments... you don't get to make up whatever you want.

I think purity does obvious eudaimonic work, if virtues are habits, and if a habit of monogomy can keep me from embarrassing public scandals. While faith might not be a virtue that Aristotle would have identified, perhaps Christian revelation makes it prudent for the culture to consider ever more deeply what the Prime Mover is up to.

Massimo,from a purely practical standpoint, wouldn't somebody answering the question to "what kind of life should I live" with "one where the consequences of all my actions are a net positive for my relevant sphere" basically arrive at the same virtues, just with an intermediate reasoning step?

Although you didn't ask me, I would venture "no," for two reasons. First, because consequentialism purports to quantify the good, whereas Massimo denied that virtue is a calculated midpoint. Secondly, because the "relevant sphere" you mention would be calculated at one point in time for your analysis, whereas virtues are habit-forming and self-perpetuate through spacetime.

Well, unfortunately, none of this has helped much with my own metaethical itch. But that's really not yours or Aristotle's problem, even though I don't believe this approach addresses such questions as whether one should or should not keep a promise or whether one should tell the truth or lie.

Kenan Malik addresses the difficulty in an essay entitled "On Evil":

"When we say ‘Hitler was evil’ we are not making the same kind of statement as when we say ‘charity is good’ or ‘torture is bad’. What we are actually doing is making a claim both about the boundaries of morality itself and about human nature, about what it is to be a moral being."

"To talk about evil is to define the space within which it is possible to have a debate that we can meaningfully call ‘moral’. A Kantian and a utilitarian will undoubtedly disagree profoundly about torture. One will probably think that torture is always wrong, even in the so-called ticking bomb scenario, while the other may well believe that it is acceptable to torture a terrorist to get vital information that could save lives. Each may even believe that the other is being immoral. Yet they are likely broadly to agree that both are debating in a meaningful way questions of right and wrong, good and bad. Each is simply at a different place in the moral landscape."

"The Stoics, however, seem to espouse what today is referred to as the doctrine of the unity of virtues, i.e. the idea that all virtues are really subsumed into a single fundamental one, which for them was prudence, meant as general wisdom."

In addition, Gadfly, I certainly wouldn't bet my house on this study cited in the post: "And here is a comparative study across nations and across American states."

From this study:

The resulting sample was 71% from the USA (N¼83,576). Also represented were 34,887 respondents from about 200 other nations. Only respondents from the 54 nations with at least 20 respondents were included in the analyses reported here (N¼117,676) (Table II).

Among our US adult respondents, there were more females than males (72% versus 28%). The typical age of US respondents was 40 years of age,ranging from 18 to 65 plus. The typical level of educational attainment for US respondents was a few years of college, ranging from less than high schoolto post-baccalaureate. Relative to the US population as a whole, respondents were more educated, and many had college degrees (26%). The non-USrespondents were also predominantly female (62%); on average, they were about 40 years of age, and most were college-educated (68%).

I'm glad there is no need to rank them. The music of each is best appreciated or applicable in different settings, activities, moods etc......

I think the same can be said for virtues which is why I think it is impossible to simply list and rank the important ones. The proper application of a given virtue in my view is always contingent on the context. Lets consider a couple virtues I highly value (humility & curiosity). I think many of our societal problems stem from to little of each of these virtues.

But if we fall in love with either concept I think it is easy to miss-apply them. Humility that is not earnest or does not grow out of a real curiosity to explore our blind-spots can easily devolve into a form of self-boasting. I'm so humble don't you see. Also while curiosity is essential to expand our wisdom it needs to well directed. A good example is Massimo's lack of interest in spending a lot of time delving into issues of faith.

Another virtue that is a Buddhist favorite (perhaps could be considered it's foundational virtue) is compassion. I've had many an argument with my eastern leaning friends where I argue against the idea that all we need is compassion. Surely understanding precedes compassion as we must understand a thing well before we can extend compassion towards it in a beneficial manner. Understanding however I think is always contextual and limited.

I'm on board with the virtue ethical approach as I think the nature of real-life complexities require a flexible ethics. I would like to see more public discussion or thought about how the various virtues might inter-relate with our level of understanding in any given situation. For example on a sliding scale humility would be less important (those still necessary to a degree) if our understanding of all the important relations in a given situation were strong, and we had a good idea of what actions would to lead different consequences.

ITSM that the virtue approach is a little question begging in that assessing whether an action is magnanimous is situation specific, and requires us to "exercise right reason in choosing ...actions that are appropriate and suitable for human nature". But this then still requires basic principles or axioms from which to reason. Even if we rely on intuition, we must believe that this is unconscious reasoning based on various heuristics, which a sufficient amount of work should be able to uncover and codify.

>> the post reads very much as if one can come up with whatever virtues one fancies> I seriously don’t understand why you think so. Indeed, I would think that your moral naturalism would fit quite nicely with virtue ethics.

Well yes, that is pretty much the point: it potentially "fits", which means that it cannot be an alternative box at the same level. Virtue ethics is *not* an approach that allows us to decide what is good to do, it is orthogonal to that question; it simply cannot answer that question!

Only once you have already used another approach to deciding what is good can you say, "oh, and by the way, I think that the best way to achieve good in our society is if everybody individually aims to be a person that naturally behaves in a good manner."

(You may, by the way, object to that sentence because the point of virtue ethics is achieving personal eudaimonia instead of achieving societal good. But if that is the case, then virtue ethics is quite simply not ethics but instead merely an egoistical self-help strategy on the level of "give up smoking and you will be less stressed.")

I had previously assumed that you are a consequentialist because you seemed to argue that virtue ethics would lead to good outcomes. Your above comments, however, are argued from a contractualist perspective, so maybe that is what you are. The thing is that you cannot be only a virtue ethicist because your virtues have to come from somewhere else, contractualism for example.

> Where does your decision to be a consequentialist (if that’s what you are) come from? Consequentialism?

Not sure if I have analysed my own stance to the degree necessary to truthfully answer that question but I suspect that I am mostly a contractualist / naturalist: ethics come from negotiation and trial and error within the constraints of our (evolved) nature and environmental parameters. (E.g. a society that considers lying and cheating to be virtues won't work.)

And I have that position because I realized three things: First, that is simply how things are, regardless of whether that is how it should be. Second, there is no way to get to a 'should' that isn't question-begging and/or human fiat. Third, because ethics are about how humans treat each other, it is humans who get to call the shots (collectively). We get to decide by fiat what our ethics should be because they are about us.

Although I am aware of the problems with pathologizing opposing positions, I also suspect that schools of ethics are a question of personal maturity: we start out as borderline egomaniacs (child obeys rules only because it fears punishment or disapproval) and then move through deontology (child understand that there are rules to be followed by everybody), consequentialism (student grasps that rules were created for a purpose and can be broken if that serves the underlying purpose better) and finally contractualism (once the student starts wondering where the heck the underlying purposes come from and how they can be justified).

And some people unfortunately got stuck in one of the immature phases of moral development: Psychopaths in the first one, conservatives and divine command theorists in the second, Sam Harris in the third...

And if A = B, and B = C, then A = C But what about B?They all look different to me, so what is truth,What can it B?Different or equal?What should it B? To B or not to B?That is the question. The Nature of B, Aristotle, Shakespeare and Me.

Hello Mr. philosophy professor. I apologize in advance for any bad english. I am a practitioner of Nei kung and tireless researcher (not student) of what we call oriental philosophy. The concept of Virtue as you understand it for daoism has never existed. You are completely right when you say the christians translated the term to virtue but it means something like when you say "By virtue of his strength". Thats what the word means when used in conjunction with Dao, not in the christian sense as in purity or perseverance. Secondly, i am no expert in Buddhism, but its not a doctrine, the four noble truths and the eight fold path as you mention are not Ideas to follow, they are only opening words of a dialogue. By this, i mean that Buddhism, at least in its origin , treats ideas as if they were a map of reality, but thats it, theyre not the territory and thus, concepts are not taken that seriously as in western tradition.

Ty for your time.And please comment on this , i'd love to get new insights.